


Terms and Conditions

by mogwai_do



Series: Embers [3]
Category: Highlander: The Series, The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 19:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14316015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: Selling your soul isn't always the bad deal it's made out to be.





	Terms and Conditions

The night was bitterly cold; the wind wasn't strong, but it sliced through his clothes like the keenest razor. The snow crunched beneath his feet, frozen hard when the temperature had dropped below zero before the sun had even dropped below the horizon. The trees were skeletal, twisted and black against the deep blue of the night sky. Black, blue and white, stark colours, yet somehow alive, sharp and clear. There was a feeling of depth to the air that spoke of infinity and eternity like it knew them intimately. There wasn't a soul for miles and what few sounds there were, were easily identified. The soft flutter of owl wings, the heavy thump of snow falling from an over-burdened branch, the rustle of evergreen leaves in the breeze.

Alex was cold, but he knew this cold; the familiarity of the breath-stealing chill was strangely comforting. Winter in the far north of Russia hid the ruin the country had made of itself and it became beautiful again as it had been in his childhood. He breathed out, watching it mist in the air and tipped his head back to look at the stars through the branches, picking out constellations without wondering if they were the source of the war that was coming.

Methos had made their travel plans again, Alex hadn't needed to ask why, but on their arrival in Russia the Immortal had turned over their ultimate destination to Alex and Alex had brought them here. They'd stayed in a local village for two days before Methos had announced that he needed some time alone, so Alex had driven them both here, far from anywhere. It was too cold to be out really, even wrapped as warmly as they were, but that wasn't the point. They'd climbed to the top of a low hill and stared at the stars for an unmeasured time, an hour maybe. Then instinct had kicked in and Alex had felt the need to move - Methos had wanted solitude. He wasn't sure what was going through his friend's ancient mind, but Alex was content to wait for Methos' explanation. In the meantime he wandered the woods, or maybe wandered wasn't the right word, reconnaissance was second nature to him, had been for years. Even here in such a forbidding wilderness he was alert, aware of what was natural and what was not.

A movement caught his eye and he stilled, tracking the wolf as it ghosted between the tree trunks. No more than 10 feet away it halted, meeting his gaze as steadily as any opponent he had ever faced. Alex studied it in turn, aware that he was the intruder here, observing the courtesy of the hunt. For a long minute the moment held and then in a casual display of indifference it was gone, continuing its hunt. Alex found himself smiling, pleased in some way by the meeting. He felt the change in the air a split second before he heard the crack that echoed through the empty sky. Alex looked up, knowing he wouldn't see the clouds such sounds would normally indicate. The light was unexpected, but not a surprise. Sheets of colour divided the night sky, bolts of purer white threading through the aurora, the tapestry of one life or a thousand. He turned in the direction of the hill where he had left Methos and began to walk.

The bare landscape he had left was no longer so empty when he returned. Alex stopped at the edge of the trees, looking out at the sea of people, more than he could easily count, at least twice the population of the last village. Natural caution kept him still a moment longer as he stretched his senses out - they weren't real, he knew that, for all his eyes were telling him. He wasn't so out of practice he could miss their arrival and he wasn't so out of touch he missed the small cues: the absence of misting breath; the way the wind didn't touch them; the lack of indentations in the snow or the simple feel that indicated the presence of another human being.

Alex took a step forward and those nearest turned to face him as one, despite the fact he knew he had made no noise. He approached slowly, but the apparitions didn't seem to regard him with anything other than a dispassionate curiosity. The same could not be said for him; old, young, male, female, dressed in every style and colour of clothing. The only thing they had in common was a blade, hanging at the waist, slung over their back or held in their hands. Maybe it was a legacy of too long an association with Methos, but Alex knew who or rather what they were - Immortals. He was just as certain that they were all long dead, though that intuition was less easily traced. Methos' victims all; some had been foolish hunters turned prey, others had been victims of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time, others had simply been victims. Alex made his way between them carefully, following the path that opened to him. He was not superstitious by nature, but he was well aware that however much he learned there would always be more to life than what he knew. It was only prudence to avoid brushing too close to them. Alex was fairly sure he was safe, but he hadn't lived so long by tempting fate.

As he walked further into the crowd something caught his eye and Alex paused and turned, seeking it out again. Not far from his path stood a plainly dressed woman and it was not her obviously ghostly nature, but rather her lack of sword that was so jarring. Alex tilted his head, mind working with this new information, trying to fit it into his understanding. As if becoming aware of his curiosity the woman stepped closer, the ranks of Immortals parting like the sea to allow her passage.

Only a few feet away she stopped and smiled; it was a warm, friendly smile and Alex returned it, hoping she didn't see how much effort it took to hide his wariness. If anything though, her smile broadened and she shook her head, her expression telling him as easily as any words that she already knew. Alex sought the right words to ask what he wanted to know, why she was different from the others, but she only shook her head gently. Ghostly fingers pressed to her lips and then reached for him and Alex couldn't help leaning instinctively away from her touch. The hand halted a bare inch from his heart, but she didn't seem upset or offended by his action. The moment hung in the air, but when he would have spoken again, she only waved him onward up the hill with a smile before disappearing back into the throng.

Shaking his head a little, Alex looked up the hill in the direction she had indicated. Methos was at the top, he knew, just where Alex had left him, at the very heart of the swirl of light and colour that was aurora and Quickening combined. Alex followed the path slowly, still looking around, trying to take in as much as he could about the others around him. Yet the walk seemed shorter than it should have been.

Methos stood unmoving at the crown of the hill, eyes bright but unseeing as his Quickening played like a child with earth and air. The crowd thinned as Alex approached his lover and friend, but for the first time Alex found himself the focus of something more than vague curiosity from the ghostly audience.

He'd never seen them before, alive or dead, but he knew who they were without doubt - the tall, blond, axe-wielding giant and the shorter, scarred Immortal - Silas and Kronos, Methos' brothers. They looked as solid as the other Immortals, but there was something very much more real than before, something that drew him as the half-visible woman had.

Two pairs of blue eyes bore into him, one pair soft and the other diamond hard, he knew that assessing look and he straightened, but to his own surprise he didn't reach for his gun even though the urge was there. Kronos' expression didn't change, but Silas' seemed to lighten as he stood his ground. Kronos' eyes slid to Alex's ruined arm insultingly and then back, but Alex didn't shift. For a moment the look held and then Kronos' lips curved into a smile that was far too knowing to be pleasant, but was strangely approving all the same. Then with unexpected suddenness, Kronos stepped back, gesturing grandly toward Methos and for the first time Alex was truly shaken by what he saw.

Standing closest of all to Methos was another figure as translucent as the woman; tall, leather-jacketed, dark hair and green, green eyes. Alex found himself drawn to his double, staring and not knowing what he was seeing, or what he was feeling. With a smile that told him his double knew exactly what he was thinking even if he didn't, the ghost raised its left hand and it was real, not the mockery of plastic Alex wore. Alex raised his own right hand, palm outward, until a bare inch separated his flesh from whatever his ghost was made of. He could feel a static pressure between them like electricity on his bare skin and with no real concept of what he was doing or why, he pressed that little bit further and touched...

Alex blinked, the stars were bright and the night was dark, the aurora gone as if it had never been. He shifted a little, aware now of the warmth of his support. Methos gave him an easy smile and loosened his hold allowing Alex to struggle upright. The hillside was deserted, only his footprints marring the snow, a single clear track, the only small deviation where he had encountered the ghostly woman.

"She was your wife," he spoke without turning round, absolutely certain, he didn't need Methos' confirmation of it. His double... soul? had told him more than that in that brief eternity of contact/joining. He wasn't sure he understood all of it, even half was pushing it, but the few things he understood he was certain of. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such a bone deep certainty, and it was strangely difficult to accept now. He was almost literally rebuilding his life from the ground up, but he didn't recall ever having such a solid foundation the first time around, what might be possible now death had no claim on him. Oh he could die; he could be shot, stabbed, poisoned, killed any one of a hundred ways that he could think of off the top of his head, and if Methos weren't around he'd stay dead too. That much he had understood, but he understood too that what had been done that first time wasn't a temporary fix or a passing impulse. In the darkness that still sometimes haunted his nightmares, he had signed over his soul to touch the light, willingly waived his rights to whatever afterlife may or may not exist and put his faith in something far more tangible than the unproven promises of religion. Methos held the deeds to his soul now and Alex could think of no safer place for them to be.


End file.
